


several sunlit days

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: draco dormiens nunquam titillandus [6]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Crossover, F/M, PTSD, the wizarding world post-1998 is full of child soldiers and traumatised Muggleborns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 05:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8565142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: They're discreet and quiet and dating despite the Statute of Secrecy.Lorraine Wickes only knows two of those things.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fredbassett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/gifts).



> Or: five times Blade turned up unexpectedly, and one time Lorraine turned up unexpectedly. Written for Fred, who gave me a cute prompt for a short fic, and then it Grew. Bella patiently beta’d it for me anyway. Based on my Harry Potter AU, Alas, Earwax, and set concurrently with it and some of the fics set earlier on. All you need to know is that James Lester cobbled the ARC project together out of half wizards/witches and half Muggles; thanks to the Statute of Secrecy, none of the Muggles knew at the time. The events of S2 led to the division of the two teams.

_After several long moments, or it might have been half an hour - or possibly **several sunlit days** \- they broke apart. - J.K. Rowling_

 

 

**i.**

Lorraine had been shown to her office by Neil from HR, who had been far too busy to help her settle in. She’d been introduced to the woman she’d be sharing an office with and told that her line manager was off sick, but that Neil would be back shortly to discuss her role with her and show her around the building. He had scuttled off muttering about dinosaurs and plausible deniability, which was certainly novel.

 

Standing in the middle of her new office, eyeing Emily – who seemed friendly enough, but was working with her headphones in – Lorraine thought that this promised to be an interesting role. It was entirely administrative, which would not have been her first choice for a new job, but it was different from the intelligence services. She needed ‘different’ almost as badly as she needed a steady income, and much more badly than she needed career progression. And anyway, HR had said there was strong potential for movement within the organization. Lorraine had her doubts about this, but at least for the moment it seemed worth taking it on trust.

 

Lorraine hung her coat over the cluttered rack in the corner, set down her handbag by her desk, and sat down, smoothing her skirt under her. She laid out her phone, diary, glasses case and small pencil-tin in the places she always kept them, and then, feeling a little more in control already, tried to turn the computer on. After several moments of failure, she discovered that it wasn’t plugged in. She was kneeling on the floor, trying to reach far enough under the desk to plug it back in, when she heard the door swing open.

 

“Hi, Mrs Williams,” a deep, Yorkshire-toned voice said. “I’ve come about the computer? Norman sent me.”

 

“Oh! Hello, Corporal Richards.” Emily was practically twittering; Lorraine tried to extricate herself from the desk with dignity. “Yes – actually, if you’re here to fix it now, that’s great, because Lorraine’s here.”

 

Lorraine stood up. Her first thought, as she met the newcomer’s eyes, was that she wasn’t surprised Emily was twittering: he was exceptionally handsome. Her second thought was that he was probably also exceptionally dangerous. She wasn’t sure exactly where she was getting that from – she had picked up from the uniform and Emily’s greeting that he belonged to the military contingent, but there was something about the way he stood that said much more than that, a kind of predator’s confidence. And then, of course, she could see the edge of a knife sheath protruding from under his shirt cuff. Carrying knives was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for dangerousness, but (in Lorraine’s experience) it was generally a fairly good clue.

 

He gave her a friendly nod, anyway, and Emily seemed completely relaxed in his company. Lorraine mentally catalogued him as dangerous, but not a present danger.

 

“I’m Lorraine,” she said, holding out a hand. “Lorraine Wickes.”

 

He shook her hand, and Lorraine noticed the fact that his grip was firm but carefully not crushing. “Richards. Most people call me Blade.”

 

Lorraine nodded a little awkwardly. “Are you good with computers?”

 

“Hardware I’m all right with.” Blade patted the computer’s tower. “Someone yanked the plug for this one out of the socket by the wire and wrecked it, I just need to replace the plug. Won’t be five minutes.”

 

“Well, if you can fix it, that would be great,” Lorraine said, standing aside. She was glad she hadn’t managed to plug it in.

 

She watched Blade work for a few seconds, and then picked up her phone and pretended to be reading vitally important texts. This lasted for less than a minute before Emily let out a roar of frustration and bolted from the room.

 

Lorraine disentangled herself from the filing cabinet she had been knocked into. “What was _that_ about?”

 

Blade straightened up and dusted off his trousers. “I heard ‘Cutter’ in there, so it was probably the Professor. He’s a bit of a character.” He grinned at her, and Lorraine tried very hard not to melt internally. _Dangerous_ , she reminded herself.

 

“Is life always this dramatic around here?” she asked.

 

Blade nodded. “You get used to it, though.” He slid a knife back up under his sleeve; Lorraine didn’t ask any of the obvious questions. “Your computer should be fine now. Let me know if it gives you any grief – Maintenance know where to find me.”

 

“Thanks,” Lorraine said.

 

He nodded at her again. “See you around, Miss Wickes.”

 

She smiled at him, and told herself she was imagining the way his eyes lingered on her before he turned to go.

 

**ii.**

 

If pressed, Lorraine would admit that fetching coffee and tea was her least favourite task. It bored her, it always had to be carefully timed – which relied on other people turning up for the meeting at the correct moment, which Lorraine found they could not be trusted to do – and it involved throwing yourself on the mercy of the rec room kettle. This object was used and abused by half a building’s worth of staff, and suffered accordingly: Lorraine had been working at the ARC two months and had requisitioned the same number of replacement kettles.

 

The other problem with coffee for meetings was that there was always more than she could reasonably carry on a single tray. Lorraine eyed the anaemic item she was expected to use to get enough tea and coffee for thirty people up two floors, and the canisters of hot drinks and serried rows of mugs. She sighed: there was at least three trips in the collection, and that was pushing it.

 

A football hit the cupboard directly above her head, and she ducked reflexively. There was a howl from the men in the rec room, and one of them slapped Finn – who had presumably been responsible for the misfire – around the head.

 

“Sorry, miss,” Finn said, an apologetic look on his amiable face. “I didn’t hit you, right?”

 

“No,” Lorraine said. “You’d know if you had.” She tried to smile, but suspected that she had only managed a grimace; it had been a wearing day so far and it was going to get worse. A lot of her work had gone into the preparation for this visit. “It’s fine. Just take the game outside, all right? I don’t fancy explaining a mysterious flying football to the Home Secretary.”

 

“Isn’t that Miss Brown’s job?” someone called. Lorraine didn’t recognise him, but knew he was one of the soldiers, and reminded herself to skim all their files again: she should have names connected to faces by now.

 

“I’m sure it would be a joint effort,” Lorraine said dryly, and went back to contemplating the tray and the tea things.

 

There was a lot of muttering, and Lorraine felt the room begin to empty as people filed out. Perhaps some kind of organised break time was over. Or perhaps they’d just decided to take the game outside, like she’d suggested. She thought about adding that they should take the football somewhere it wouldn’t be visible when the Home Secretary arrived in ten minutes, but decided that they were canny enough to reach that conclusion themselves.

 

Someone coughed behind her, and Lorraine turned to see Blade, hands in his pockets and smiling faintly.

 

She smiled back at him, trying to quell the peculiar fluttering in her stomach. She now had eight minutes until the Home Secretary arrived, and mooning over the man she’d only been on a couple of dates with was a terrible distraction. Even if he was very handsome, and funnier and more thoughtful than she’d realised – she’d already known he was smart and highly competent and surprisingly kind.

 

Blade nodded at the tray. “I can find another one of those and help you. If you like.”

“Please,” Lorraine said fervently. She glanced at her watch: seven minutes. “I mean, if you don’t mind – that would be a huge help.”

“I want to,” Blade said, and added belatedly: “Help. I mean.”

 

She smiled again, and ducked her head. “As I said. I’d appreciate that.”

 

 

When the Home Secretary and his entourage entered the building, the teas, coffees and biscuits were neatly assembled on the correct tables in the conference room, and Lorraine and Blade were walking back to the rec room. Blade had picked a route through remoter areas which the visiting group wouldn’t be walking through; Lorraine thought he’d done that on purpose, and appreciated it. She also had a vague idea that the route was meandering more than strictly necessary, and was fairly sure she appreciated that, too. Being around Blade made her feel vaguely electrified at first, on edge and somehow enjoying it, but once she relaxed and forgot to be nervous, his company was calming. She probably shouldn’t be dawdling like this, but she kept glancing sideways at him and seeing him look back at her with a warmth that made her deprioritise everything else.

 

Blade cleared his throat and looked down at his feet. “Are you free Saturday?”

 

“Yes,” Lorraine said, slightly faster than she meant to.

 

The warmth in his eyes spread into a smile. “Want to see a movie or something?”

 

“I’d like that,” she said, and tilted her head. “The new James Bond has just come out.”

 

“I didn’t know you liked Bond films.”

 

“My brothers and sister loved them, so I’ve seen all of them.” Lorraine shrugged, and said nothing about her own previous experience with the intelligence services, and the fun of picking holes in the film’s logic. Blade had probably already guessed at her background, but there was no reason to tell him outright just yet. “I want to see how Daniel Craig does.”

 

Blade nodded. “Where’s handy for you?”

 

“Hammersmith?” Lorraine suggested. “What about you?”

 

“I’m further east, but I can do Hammersmith.” Blade looked ahead of them; they were approaching the rec room, and a lot of people who would gossip like fiends if given any reason to know they were dating. “I think I might be on-shift that night. Is the afternoon okay?”

 

“That’s not a problem,” Lorraine said. Truthfully, she was too excited about the fact that he kept seeking out her company to mind in the slightest.

 

“I’ll check and let you know,” Blade said, and smiled another of those impossible smiles.

 

Lorraine went back to her office wondering what piece of good luck had caused Blade to take an interest in her, and whether it was going to last.

 

**iii.**

Lorraine heard someone coming and her head jerked up: she had been listening too hard, the last few days. At least she had successfully banned pens that clicked from her immediate vicinity; far too many people seemed to click such pens as a nervous tic, which Lorraine couldn't hear without recalling the sound the predator had made as it hunted. Fortunately, few people were wearing sharp heels to a torn-up workplace. Jenny Lewis's customary stilettos would have done for Lorraine's composure in seconds.

 

Lorraine stared at the doorway of her temporary office, waiting for someone to appear, but the footsteps stopped and after a few frozen moments Lorraine went back to her work. She was reading through contracts for some of the more cosmetic work on the damaged building, and since it wasn't her speciality and the language was dense she was having considerable trouble. A lawyer _should_ be looking at them, and a lawyer eventually would when the man who worked part-time for the ARC had finished with the liabilities arising from the deaths of eighteen people on the premises, but if there were any major issues, Lorraine should be able to spot them.

 

She rubbed her fingers in fruitless circles over her temples and stared at the dense black type. Her eyes were unfocusing repeatedly, and she was struggling to retain anything from the paragraphs she had already read, no matter how many notes she took. But looking at the neat list of tasks she had written when she got into work at half-past five that morning, she knew she couldn't afford to stop. She had too much left to do, and she needed to work effectively with the others. She wasn't the only one pouring all of herself into her work; she wasn't even the only one who found it easier than confronting what had happened to her.

 

Someone coughed. Lorraine jerked, shoving her chair back from her desk and sending her half-full mug flying; she fetched up against the back wall, heart pounding, while a puddle of cold coffee soaked into the carpet and Blade watched her from the doorway.

 

Lorraine felt the slow, inexorable burn of mortification creep over her. She closed her eyes, hoping her blush wasn't as obvious as she thought, and let her head thunk back against the wall. "It's you," she said, deeply relieved despite her embarrassment.

 

"Yeah," Blade said, coming a few steps into the little room and reaching warily for the mug, which he set back on her desk, before reaching for a handful of tissues and dropping them on the stain. "I was going to ask if you were okay."

 

"I'm fine," Lorraine said, pulling her chair back towards her desk.

 

Blade was polite enough not to contradict her directly, but he gave her a dubious look from those vivid green eyes.

 

"Really," Lorraine said, and seized on a trailing thought in a bid to distract him. "I'm sure you're not supposed to be here. You were being reassigned."

 

"How do you know?" Blade said, looking slightly taken aback for once in his life.

 

"Cancelling your security passes is on my to-do list." Lorraine rubbed her eyes and kept them covered; the darkness was soothing, and her head pounded less. "I just haven't got there yet."

 

"Good," Blade said. "It would've been embarrassing if I'd had to break in."

 

"You'd have been shot," Lorraine said into her hands.

 

"Nah." A hand settled softly on her shoulder, and Lorraine knew it was Blade's; she twitched involuntarily and then relaxed. He had large hands, warm and slightly rough, and she felt a little more anchored under his touch. His fingers rested over her collarbone, so he was standing behind her now, and Lorraine wondered for a second if he could read the contracts' small type before dismissing her concerns. The contracts weren't restricted information. Everyone knew the plaster in the botanists' corridor needed replacing.

 

"Do you know why we're being reassigned?" Blade asked, a little hesitantly.

 

"No." Lorraine dropped her hands and leaned back in her chair, back into Blade's hand. "I know Lester's going too, but I haven't heard why." She looked up at him, tilting her head back against his ribs. "Were you planning on telling me?"

 

He hesitated again. "Can't," he said, and squeezed her shoulder gently. "Sorry."

 

"It's fine," she said, and closed her eyes.

 

"Come on," he said. "You need a break."

 

"I'm busy," Lorraine informed him.

 

"You didn’t get lunch."

 

Lorraine's eyes shot open. "How can you bloody tell?" she demanded.

 

He chuckled. "No sandwich box in the bin and Finn says you didn't go out."

 

"Ugh," Lorraine said. "Well, it's only three-“

 

"It's six."

 

Lorraine wilted.

 

He squeezed her shoulder again, and then lifted her gently out of her chair; she wobbled a bit, but he stood patiently while she caught her balance.

 

"I'll admit that's not ideal," she said.

 

His lips twisted in a sort of rueful half-smile. "But this isn't the last time you're going to do it, is it?"

 

"No," Lorraine said, and wondered if he was going to be stupid enough to ask her not to do it for his sake.

 

He wasn't. "Come on," he said again. "Grab your handbag."

 

Lorraine considered disagreeing with him, and decided against on the grounds that it felt futile; she’d rather be with him, and she had probably earned a break. "Okay," she said, and picked up her bag, locking her computer and leaving her office. Something indefinable changed in Blade's posture, and Lorraine stopped and stared at him, narrow-eyed. "You look... Pleased."

 

The corner of his mouth curled up. "Finn rated my chances of getting you out of here at ten percent."

 

Lorraine flushed and rolled her eyes. "Take it up with Finn."

 

 

At the Starbucks round the corner, Blade left her in the corner of a squashy sofa and went to get drinks for them both, having refused Lorraine's offer of cash. She sat back, consciously ignoring her phone, and examined the vantage point Blade had chosen: tucked into the back of the café, with a clear view of the entire room and easy access to a back door, wherever that led. There was almost no-one this far back; only a plump, tired-looking girl sitting a few tables away, surrounded by papers and a laptop, on the phone, and probably too focused to have noticed their arrival.

 

Lorraine wondered exactly how much Blade thought she needed reassuring, and reflected bitterly that throwing her cup of coffee across the room earlier had probably made him think she was losing it.

 

The girl with the laptop tapped her nails on its plastic, and Lorraine felt ice race down her spine.

 

 _You are not going anywhere_ , she told herself, curling her hands together, and waited grimly until Blade came back. It must have been minutes, but it felt like hours, and Lorraine's breathing grew increasingly ragged, her knuckles turning fawn-coloured as her hands clenched tighter and tighter. But she couldn't tell a stranger to stop doing something perfectly natural, and she couldn't get up and move, couldn't show that much weakness -

 

On his way back, Blade jostled the girl's table and knocked enough papers off to bring an immediate halt to the tapping. Lorraine could have kissed him, but she was too busy trying to bring her racing heart back under control.

 

Blade set a tray down in front of her and sat down next to her. Lorraine tried not to outright snatch hold of his hand, but suspected she did. She couldn't meet his eyes, for some reason, so she stared at the tray. He'd brought iced water and two coffees, a banana and a piece of shortbread, and the only thing on that tray that he was touching was one of the coffees.

 

Lorraine swallowed. "What's this in aid of?"

 

His fingers closed tightly on hers. "Just reminding you. You don't have to do this by yourself."

 

Lorraine almost cried. Instead, she slid closer to him and pressed her face into his shoulder, let him put his arm around her and tuck her head under his chin, listened to him breathing; he was calm and still, and she could focus on that, and not the uneasy jittering of her own raw nerves.

 

**iv.**

 

Claudia was glaring daggers at Christine Johnson as the Minister ushered them into his office. Lorraine crossed her fingers for Claudia, though she thought she probably didn't need to; observing from the lower levels of the ARC, she had always seen a certain toughness in Claudia, and the other woman had definitely proven capable of rising to a challenge.

 

Lorraine couldn't help, anyway. Even with her higher security clearance and recent promotion, she couldn't go in there. And she would as soon not face Christine Johnson; she was too exhausted to deal with someone of Johnson's notoriety. She had worked hard and slept very poorly lately, and she hadn't even seen Blade for weeks. He texted often, and sometimes called if she asked, but she missed his physical presence with a startling sharpness. Part of her even wondered if his new posting, whatever it was exactly, was pulling him away from her, or if he'd just had enough.

 

She was in the lift in Marsham Street, gazing absently out of its window, when she spotted Blade - trailing James Lester, exuding quiet menace as usual. She stepped closer to the glass automatically, and as her lift moved downwards he glanced around and saw her. The expression of blank surprise that spread across his face was not gratifying, but the quick, secret smile that followed it was.

           

When she got out of the lift, her phone buzzed with a text; she opened it. _Busy?_ it said.

 

 _Not for at least the next thirty minutes_ , she typed, and then added, just in case - _I'll be in the café_.

 

Somehow, he was there as fast as she was, without being the slightest bit out of breath, and he arrived from a completely illogical direction. Lorraine wondered how the hell he'd managed that, and what she didn't know about Marsham Street. Probably quite a lot, truthfully.

 

"Lester's probably not going to be here long," he said, grasping her hand; his eyes were very bright, and she thought he would have liked to have hugged her, but the place wasn't quite right. Lorraine wasn't accustomed to touching even her friends at work, and she had few friends close enough to even consider it. Having a boyfriend in her workplace was an entirely different kettle of sharks. "But I can stay for a bit - he can't have me in his meeting."

 

"Claudia can't have me in hers, either." Lorraine patted the rucksack she had over one shoulder. "I think she mostly brought me to carry papers."

 

Blade's eyebrows did something complicated indicating disbelief, and Lorraine stared at him evenly, daring him to contradict her. Wisely, he didn't. "Have you got time for a coffee?"

 

"Oh, yes," Lorraine said, and then added prudently, "takeaway cups, just in case."

 

She insisted on buying this time, and they sat at one of the tables talking about nothing that mattered very much - the flat she had moved into six months previously and was now repainting, each wall a tangible reminder that she was alive and could make a difference, his flatmates and their eccentricities - edging around the same basic unspeakable and unanswerable questions. _Are you safe? Are you sleeping? Are you still around? Are you still flinching from noises and lights?_

_Do you really want to make this happen?_

 

Lorraine had little doubt that the two of them could find time for a relationship, successful or otherwise, under different circumstances. But with the long days and longer nights she worked to keep the ARC afloat, having put too much of herself into it to let it go now, and the irregular patterns of his new job, they saw each other so little. They'd both have to want to try very hard.

 

Lorraine was not surprised to realise how much she wanted to try that hard, and how desperately she hoped he wanted the same. It made her feel exposed, but it was true, and Lorraine couldn't walk away from it.

 

She slid her foot against his under the table, feeling very daring, and paid close attention to him for the twenty minutes they got before Lester's meeting ended, trying to commit the sound of his voice and the colour of his eyes to memory.

 

When he got up to leave he jerked his head towards a nondescript grey door - slightly, almost imperceptibly, but Lorraine had been watching his face carefully. It was an invitation, and she got up and walked with him, keeping their conversation going and sipping on the rest of her cooling coffee between remarks. The grey door led to a deserted stairwell, and she wasn't surprised when one of Blade's hands caught her waist and he kissed her, his free hand light on her cheek.

 

"We're at work," she said, a criticism that would have had more force if she hadn't got her own free hand curled into the front of his suit jacket, and if she hadn't been smiling.

 

He grimaced. "I know. I'm sorry, I won't do it again. I just - I miss having you around. Are you free Friday evening?"

 

Lorraine's heart bounced. "I'll make it happen." Lorraine located some courage and leaned up to kiss him again, and then she let go of his jacket and pushed him a little. "Go on, you'll be late, Lester will be sarcastic."

 

He dropped a final kiss on her forehead, and she couldn't help laughing a little. "That other door leads to a shadow corridor. You can go through there and round and no-one will guess."

 

Lorraine nodded. "See you on Friday."

 

She heard a nasty cracking noise as the other door swung shut behind her, but there was no cry of pain, so she didn't go back. Even Blade would have called out if he'd fallen and broken something.

 

**v.**

 

Lorraine's phone rang when she was just climbing out of the bath; she groaned, wrapped herself more securely in a towel, and scuttled out into the main room of her small flat to grab it from the kitchen island. If it was Claudia or Jenny from work she wasn't going to be responsible for her actions.

 

The caller ID read _Niall Richards._ Lorraine's heart stuttered, and she pressed the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

 

"Hi. Is this a bad time?" He sounded curiously shy, which wasn't surprising; she usually got significant advance notice of any communications, and tended to return the favour by texting to let him know she planned to call. This had come completely out of the blue. She felt a stupid little smile curl the corner of her mouth at the thought of it, and shifted her feet, pulling her towel up a little higher. She was dripping water and bubble bath suds all over the floor.

 

"No," she said. "Why?"

 

"'S just - my shift's just ended and I was in the area and I thought I might come round?"

 

"I'd like that," Lorraine said with real pleasure, and then, struck by something she couldn't name, she wandered over to the window and glanced out. From her top-floor perch she could see somebody moving under the cover of the trees in the square - someone tall and dark and talking on the phone. "When you say in the area, Niall..."

 

"Close by," he said shiftily.

 

"I can see you from my window."

 

The figure looked up and waved, and Lorraine couldn't stifle her laugh. "Come in," she said. "I'll see you in a minute."

 

Lorraine put her phone down, and then suddenly remembered that she was standing in the middle of her living room wearing nothing but a towel, and she had absolutely no intention of opening the door to her boyfriend like that. The front door buzzer went off, and she pressed it to let him in and dashed back to her bedroom. With any luck he wouldn't take the four flights of stairs too fast.

           

When Lorraine opened the door to him, she was fully dressed and had had time to wonder where his shift had taken him that had brought him so close to her home. "Working on a Saturday?" She hugged him and tilted her face up for a kiss; Blade grinned down at her and gave her one that made her knees turn temporarily to jelly.

 

"Yeah." Blade shrugged. "I keep being rostered on for weekends. Should be better later in the summer."

 

"In Putney?"

           

His mouth twisted ruefully. "Don't ask me."

 

She nodded. "It's just nice to see you."

 

Blade smiled, one of the real, slow, warm smiles that took over his entire face and made his green eyes shine, and kissed her again: her lips, her cheek, her jaw, and then - making her laugh when his stubble caught against her skin and tickled - her neck, where he came to an abrupt halt.

 

"That's that orange soap you use," he said, apparently surprised, and then one of his hands tugged at the back of her shirt.  "And you've got your shirt on inside out."

 

"Really?" Lorraine covered her face with her hands, feeling a slightly hysterical giggle rise in her, and hid her face in his shoulder.

 

"Did I get you out of the bath?" he demanded, grinning.

 

"Well, no, not exactly -"

 

"You should've said. You didn't need to bother dressing up for me -"

 

"Oh, shut up," Lorraine said, now beet red. He was laughing at her now, face full of mischief and arms slung loose around her waist, and she grabbed his head and pulled him closer to claim his mouth for better purposes.

 

**+i.**

 

"My question is," Matt said, flicking his wand and dumping a levitating Blade onto his bed with more efficiency than gentleness, "when's that Muggle girlfriend of yours coming round?"

 

"Er," Blade said, and reached for the jacket hung over one of the bedposts to rifle through the pockets. He'd spent the night in St Mungo's, and he couldn't take his phone there without frying it, so he had no idea if Lorraine had contacted him. Ross had sent her a text message from Blade's phone saying their planned date was off because he'd got slightly injured - Ross was a halfblood, had even been to a Muggle primary school and taken some A-Levels, and could manage Muggle technology as well as Blade could - but Blade had no idea if she'd replied.

 

She had. Several times over. It looked like Ross had dumped Blade's phone in the pocket of his jacket and left it. There were several missed calls and a number of texts; he scrolled through them.

 

Matt was still talking, and rearranging his leg, conjuring cushions to support it and casting diagnostic spells Blade ignored, the results of which appeared satisfactory. "- I don't know how serious you are about her, just give us a bit of advance warning and we'll Muggle-proof the place. Haven't got to do much more than put Philomena's cage in my room and hide the owl treats and that Kneazle Helena's got Ross looking after, anyway -"

 

"Don't forget your medical journals. Lorraine will read them," Blade said, and then added: "and it's not a Kneazle, it's prehistoric."

 

"I don't care," Matt said. "If it eats my boots again it's out, nearly healed or not. Did she text? Does she say when she wants to come round?"

 

Blade was just reading the latest text. _I'm in Tower Hill_ , it said. _I know that's handy for yours. Let me know if you'd like to see me - I can leave work at four. I hope you're feeling okay._

 

It was just about to turn four o'clock.

 

"How about now?" Blade said, typing rapidly. _fuck yes. Whenever u can make it over here. Do u know the address?_ He thought he hadn't told her. But if she knew Tower Hill was close, she probably had a good idea where in Bermondsey he lived, too.

           

Tower Hill, though? He wondered what had taken her - presumably her and Claudia Brown - there.

 

Matt heaved a martyred sigh. "Blade, we don't have time to go over the place now. I don't want to break the Statute of Secrecy just because you wanted to see your girlfriend."

 

"I'll Obliviate her myself if I have to," Blade said, well aware that he would do no such thing; thinking about it made him feel vaguely sick. He was fairly sure it was the idea of wiping part of Lorraine's mind that was doing that, and not the potion Matt had forced down his gullet just before they left St Mungo's.

 

"Ha," Matt said, correctly gauging the sincerity of this remark, and put his hands on his hips, preparatory to laying down the Law According To Matt.

 

Blade's stomach swooped, and he suddenly missed Lorraine, her warmth and the ease of being around her, her soft hands and sharp eyes. His leg fucking hurt; the bastard thing that had bitten him had had needle-sharp fangs. He wanted Lorraine to distract him. And she was so _close_ -

 

"Please, mate," he said, and something in his voice must have struck Matt, because the medic's face softened.

 

"Fine, then." Matt glanced around Blade's room. "Nothing in here, I don't think."

 

Blade pulled his wand from the sheath on one wrist and stuffed it into a bedside drawer. His room was pretty bare; he wasn't like Matt, with moving posters on his walls and a mirror that recited your to-do list in the morning. "Not now."

           

His phone chimed, and Blade checked the text.

 

 _I know it_ , Lorraine had written. (How? Blade asked himself.) _ETA 1615_.

 

Blade grinned foolishly at the screen, and tried to shift his leg to be a bit more comfortable. It just made it hurt worse. “Fifteen minutes!” he yelled at Matt.

 

“Merlin’s balls,” Matt bawled despairingly. Blade could hear Philomena screeching as Matt moved her cage, which served Matt right for having the world’s prissiest owl. “At least she can’t fucking Apparate!”

 

“If she could Apparate this wouldn’t be a problem,” Blade pointed out at top volume.

 

            Matt made a visceral noise of irritation. “At least text Ross and let him know!”

 

Blade flicked back to his messages and quickly typed a short text to tell Ross not to do anything stupid like Apparate directly to the unused cleaning cupboard right outside their flat, or barge in talking loudly about Flooing to see Helena at the veterinary college in Ottery St Catchpole this weekend. He hoped Ross would have got it; the other Auror frequently accidentally fried his phone through taking it into the armoury, and therefore always had the cheapest and least reliable models.

 

Text sent, Blade looked up and looked around his room, wondering what kind of an impression it was going to make. He had tidied and cleaned it recently, at least. Lorraine was always perfectly neat, and so was her flat, the few times he’d visited, and he didn’t think he lived up to her standards – still, he didn’t violate them too badly, and that would probably do under the circumstances. He hadn’t made the bed, but he thought he could probably be forgiven for that, considering. He leaned over as far as he could and tried to neaten the edges a bit. The freshly-conjured cushions under his leg were not his taste at all, Hawaiian print and gaudy colours, but Blade had never been brilliant at Transfiguration and he didn’t have the first clue how to go about changing them.

 

Blade fidgeted, and looked down at his phone. Five minutes past four. The boredom would get to him if Matt’s steady, swearword-laden complaints about Blade’s overly prompt girlfriend didn’t.

 

He sighed and heaved open the drawer of his bedside table again, retrieving his wand from among the miscellaneous collection inside. He pointed it at the shelf of books above his chest of drawers. “ _Accio_ book,” he said, and a thriller he’d bought but hardly touched flew across the room and hit him in the chest. It probably wasn’t the most impressive choice, but Blade didn’t feel like explaining the few popular physics books his grandfather had bought him to capitalise on one of their few shared interests, and he certainly couldn’t get out the Arithmancy texts he still read, hidden in his bedside table.

 

 

By the time Matt was letting Lorraine into the flat, introducing himself, and showing her to Blade’s room, Blade had remembered why he had never finished his book and fidgeted himself stupid enough to drop the book when Lorraine walked in.

 

“Tea?” Matt said hospitably. Blade hoped he meant normal person tea, not one of the revolting herbal brews he tended to blend himself.

 

“Thank you, but I’m fine,” Lorraine said, with one of her polite smiles. “I’ve just come from a day of meetings, I’ve been given more tea and coffee than a reasonable person should drink.”

Matt smiled charmingly at her. Blade reminded himself that his flatmate was extremely gay, and had no romantic interest in beautiful, shy, sharp-witted Muggle women. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said, and waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Blade as he closed the door.

 

Blade, who had shoved his wand back into his bedside drawer when he heard Lorraine enter the flat, wished he could hex the other man. Stinging boils would do it.

 

He settled for smiling at Lorraine instead. “Thanks for coming,” he said, and his voice came out softer and less casual than he’d meant.

 

She smiled back at him tentatively, and came to stand by the side of the bed. “It was nothing,” she said. “Are you badly hurt?”

 

“No,” Blade said. This was strictly true; Matt’s care would see him on his feet tomorrow and fully healed by the end of the week. “It’s just a scratch, doesn’t even sting.”

 

This was a blatant lie, and Blade knew by the arch of Lorraine’s eyebrows that she hadn’t bought it. Graciously, she said nothing, just smoothed the skirt of her indigo dress down the front of her thighs.

 

“D’you want to sit down?” he said, a little awkwardly, and patted the bed next to him invitingly. On his good side, so he could pull her close without risking flinching at any contact between her and his wounded leg.

 

“Oh – yes,” Lorraine said, and edged onto the bed with him.

 

There wasn’t quite enough room, and he shifted sideways and instantly jarred the sorest part of the leg. His vision went a bit white at the edges, and he gritted his teeth; when the red waves of pain ebbed, Lorraine had kicked off her boots and was sitting pressed up against him, holding one of his hands tightly, her free arm wrapped around his shoulders and his head resting against her shoulder.

 

“That sounded unpleasant,” she said eventually. “Do you need painkillers?”

 

“No,” Blade said, putting an arm around her waist. Getting painkillers would involve fetching Matt, and that would mean Lorraine getting up regardless of whether she went to find Matt or Blade shouted for Matt: there was no way Lorraine would sit like this with him if there was someone else in the room. “No, I’m okay.”

 

Lorraine hummed, and ran a hand through his very short black hair, elegant nails sliding over his scalp. It was weirdly soothing, and Blade let himself relax with it. After a few moments, she stopped, let out a long, thoughtful breath, and kissed his temple, her lips resting light and warm on his skin.

 

“Don’t stop,” he said, involuntarily.

 

“Oh?” Lorraine slid her hand through his hair again. “Is that nice? I was just fidgeting.”

“I like it,” Blade admitted. He nudged her gently, and lifted his head to kiss her. “Just don’t tell Matt. I’ll never hear the bloody end of it.”

 

“No promises,” Lorraine murmured, smiling into the kiss.

 

He laughed, and squeezed his arm around her waist. “Fuck. I’m glad you’re here, Lorraine.”

 

“Me too,” Lorraine said, her smile still in her voice, and Blade wondered what he was going to have to do to hold on to being this happy.

 

Whatever it was, he was going to do it.


End file.
